My husband and I have been married for 6 years. We have 4 children; one who he has raised as his own from my previous marriage(10), one deceased, one 18 months, and one unborn.

We have had a difficult marriage for several years, and my husband consistently has spouse - exclusive friendships with women. One of them that I know of has gone too far, with an old girlfriend from high school. He sent a no contact letter per my request.

I have urged him to employ MarriageBuilders with me, but he refuses. I admittedly dug my heels in and refused to work any type of actionable plan on my own without his willingness to participate in improving the marriage.

We argue in circles, and issues typically remain unresolved.

Our catalyst -
He wanted to go out of town with a (male) friend for a car show. I agreed, but asked that he not behave in a way that was not becoming of a married man while down there, due to the above issues with inappropriate boundaries with other women. He agreed.

He blew me off the entire time. He kept saying he'd call "later". I kept my calm the next day when I saw he'd waited until an absurd time he knew I'd be asleep to call. I went out of my way to say "I must have been confused about when you'd call," to avoid an argument. However, later in the day when I asked him if he'd be home that night or in the morning, he wouldn't give me a straight answer - not even "I don't know" - saying instead, "When I get there", until I asked him outright for a straight answer. I told him I felt disrespected that he blew me off (this has been an issue every time he's been out of town - blowing me off and/or calling at times he knew I'd be asleep or busy) and that I didn't appreciate him refusing to give me a straight answer on when he'd be home.

When he did return the next day - he'd slept at the friend's house - he had deleted all text messages during the trip. I recovered them using an application and found texts between him and another woman from when he was growing up, she was going to visit him. He has slept with this woman, years before me, so I was naturally worried. It was late at night.

I approached him and asked him if he'd met with anyone while in [city], or if anyone had come to see him at [friend's] house. He replied no. I asked several times in several different ways. I then sent him the screenshot and told him I had given him an opportunity to be forthcoming with me, and that I was very upset he'd 1. done this and 2. lied about it.

He blew up and said he wants a divorce. He is insistent that he decided that night to go to sleep instead and didn't see her. He packed a few outfits last night and left to another friend's house. This friend in particular is unmarried, just had his engagement broken off by his fiance in "bad movie" style drama, and has a very skewed perception on marriage right now. I asked him to at least stay with our married friends, who are pro marriage and whose home he is welcome in in an effort to be in a marriage healthy environment, and though he told me twice he would, he went to the former's home instead.

He left last night and I am desperate to save my marriage. I was definitely wrong to dig my heels in and refuse to meet any of his needs until my trust was regained and he met mine; I did so out of anger and a misguided attempt to protect myself. It's crunch time though. I love him (more than I want to right now) and I want to restore my marriage.

I strongly suspect that even if it is not the above woman, and even if he's not begun anything concrete yet, there is at bare minimum an emotional attraction to another woman.

Financially, I make enough to be comfortable with us on 2 incomes; but not anywhere near what it would take to survive with 2 kids, eventually 3, a pregnancy in the meantime, and one income - I live in a high COL area and won't be able to pay my bills for another month on my income (I am currently looking for a place already). He works under the table so his income can't be proven.

I don't know what to do here. I don't have a plan.

Welcome to MB and Dr. Harley has a Plan.

Do you know if this OW is married? Do you know how many OW there are currently?

Please get ready for exposure.

Please read this. SAA-Start Her First

I only know of the text exchange I recovered. I know the woman from that text exchange personally, and she is not married. She is in the same social circle as the people my husband grew up with.

There was an emotional affair about 3 years ago. The high school sweetheart. I caught it and stopped it before it could get emotional edit : physical. I gathered everything I could and exposed, including to her spouse.

However, he has locked me out of everything now. All passwords (which I knew as a result of the above) were changed immediately.

I will read the link you provided - please forgive my cloud-headedness in the meantime, I'm in absolute shock after finding the deleted texts and having my husband walk out as a result of confrontation. My brain usually works a lot better than it has been for the past 24 hours.

We understand how you feel and I'm so sorry for your pain.

MB has a plan for you to follow and you might need to talk to your doctor about ADs, but with your pregnancy you must keep your self-care at the fore front.

Okay thanks for the explanation. So this his 2nd affair since you've been married?

Do you want to stay married to a serial cheater?

I don't have any hard proof other than the text with her intent to come visit him, so I can't say definitively that anything did/did not happen that night (though I do suspect it) - I do know that out of all the texts I've recovered none of them told her he was going to sleep like he claimed. That being said, it was inappropriate at best.

I do not want to continue like this with inappropriate relationships even in the mix. I would like to be able to save my marriage, and I know that the only way to have what I'll need is if he will stop this behavior. To be honest I do want to save my marriage, and I don't want to give up on it, but I also understand that it may not be possible, without any willingness from him to do some real work on the boundaries he currently has with women, to remain married unless I am willing to have this happen again.

Hi trafficmonkey, welcome to Marriage Builders. i am sorry for the reasons that have brought you here. First off, you don't have anything to save here unless your husband makes radical changes in his approach to being a husband. His behavior will destroy your marriage and your mental and physical health. I think it is good that he has left you. That is a blessing in disguise. If I were you, I would change the locks, pack up his stuff and send him a letter giving him your conditions for reconciliation. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

But by hanging around as his 'option" you just make yourself look so unattractive and remove ALL and ANY motivation for him to change his behavior.

I would read up on Plan B after you change the locks and send him a Plan B letter. Do you have the book Survving an Affair? The case studies in there don't apply to your serial cheater, playah husband, but you would benefit from reading about Plan B.

This is what it will take to EVER have a marriage with him, nothing less. I seriously doubt he will do any of this.

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

Here How to Plan B Correctly

Thank you so much.

He called last night. He had moved from the pro-exit friend's home to the home of one of our mutual friends who, while never married, is very pro-marriage. We had one of the calmest discussions about recurring conflicts in our marriage that we've had in years. He had told me he was calling so I'd sat down and made a list of phrases I could use - I am obsessive compulsive with anxiety issues and tend to get long winded- he needs "the point" while I ingest the more detailed versions of the point better. I'm a serious overthinker and I know that it does tend to be a bit much for someone who just wants the bullet points.

I did express that he has to be willing to start working MB with me immediately, and that the checklist needs to be completed - and that I require complete and total transparency / honesty. I also stressed that there is no way I can trust him until his poor boundaries with women are addressed, the behavior changes immediately, completely and from here on, and extraordinary precautions are to be taken to avoid situations in which his poor boundaries are in a position to be gambled with. I'm still processing the conversation but there was a lot covered.

I also asked him what he needs from me and he wants more domestic support from me (I'm not a slob by any means, I'm just at peace with kid clutter while he's a neat freak). I know I have a part in this and want to be sure that I do what I can to change the dynamic on my end.

He agreed to all of this and will be home this evening. I do not trust this just yet but I definitely am not prepared to Plan B, not yet. I should Plan A if he's here, correct? I'm still new to this.

I know that I have a tendency to respond on emotion and I'm very aware that I need to be in complete control of that, especially right now. I also know I'm very long winded and have a habit of speaking in complexities, analogies, metaphors... he gets very frustrated with this and I want to make sure I'm also in control of that and speaking more simply than normal.

I don't want to flake out on this post; just because we've talked and are going to be working on things doesn't mean I don't need help. My way has not worked for me. I need to do something different than I've been doing. I've been reading on this forum off and on for a good while but I've never put hammer to nail and employed a lot of MB principles.

I would give it about 2 weeks to see if he is serious and then go into Plan B if he is not. I would stick to the checklist above, in addition to getting the FULL TRUTH about his past. i don't think he is telling you the truth. Will he tell you the full truth and then follow up with a polygraph?


I agree you should not stop posting, because your work has not even BEGUN. And keep in mind, that a RADICAL change is required on his part. Is he willing to do all of the things on the checklist?

He is willing to do it all and has written the NC letter to the woman I found the texts with - which I mailed out this morning. Last night we sat down and he answered questions honestly - questions that normally would've been avoided or he would've normally gotten angry at, were answered calmly and fully. I was able to fact-check most of what he was telling me and a lot of it did include things that I was previously unaware of or truths he would've avoided telling me usually. He also did say that if I need a polygraph to feel like I'm moving forward on the full truth he will get one. I let him know that I knew he was uncomfortable with the process of laying it all out but that this is the only way that I can move forward, to know fully what I am moving forward from.

He also came home showing evidence of having started reading up on MB principles. We sat down last night and went through most of the Basic Concepts and both of us could relate a lot of what has taken us down this path to the destructive behaviors outlined. I'm encouraged by this effort because he usually is content to remain ignorant of new information, which has been one of my biggest peeves because I cannot personally fathom not wanting to grow.

I'm still wary but encouraged.

I may have a job offer coming up in a few weeks that would require a move to another area, but would start out making multiples of what I currently make. He does not know about this and will not until I have both received the offer and I have seen progress and follow-through. So there may be some hope on the financial end for me if it turns out that he is insincere or returns to the same behaviors. Even if the job offer does not come through I do work remotely so may be able to find something in a lower COL area without having to change my job, which I have not stopped looking for just in case.

I have been avoiding LB and meeting his top emotional needs as thoroughly as I can. I have every password and ran phone recovery again last night and did not find anything further, save for his attempt to justify his leaving to a pro-marriage friend, whose home he went to the second night and who (thankfully) did call him out and say "It's interesting that you seem to have done nothing to contribute to this situation". I am the tech geek who knows where to look, so if there was any electronic evidence there I would find it - he does not know how to permanently delete items from anything.

This could be a first step, but beware, it is not uncommon for serial cheaters like your husband to try to get you back into the boat by throwing you some bait, without ever changing in the long run.

Have you worked on exposing his behaviour?

I would be sure to install spyware on his phone that has a built in GPS. How is doing on the checklist?

It seems to me you have the answer just hard to accept. If he continually blows you off when he is out of town he is either up to no good or does not care or respect you enough to bother. Either way by the way you make it sound he is not an active participant in your relationship. He is along for the ride. I was once told men will "float" for a long time in an unhappy relationship as long as he is getting sex. This was a professional and well educated life coach. Stop the sex and see where he is really at or just get out. If you own a house you will have money to get started on a knew life. At the very least visit your bank consult a lawyer and do some research on how to get out because it seems like you deserve better (without know you of course).